As a professional guide, I get asked a lot of questions. Some are from family and friends who never really understood what I do for a living. Others are from local outdoorsmen and women who can’t believe I actually get paid to hunt and fish. Plenty of folks who aren’t sporting by nature want to know what my real job is.
By far, there is one question I get asked by nearly every client, whether in my truck during the fall or in my canoe in the spring: “Which do you like guiding better — hunting or fishing?”
The answer is more complicated than you might think.
I like witnessing a perfect presentation to wary brook trout on a remote, hike-in stream in mid-May. I also like “chopping prop” while trolling in my Grand Laker, as clients stare wide-eyed, mouths agape, while a landlocked salmon leaps from the shallows, hook in mouth.
I like watching clients put poppers and bugs right on top of a spawning bed in crystal-clear water along rocky shorelines. I like the look of surprise when the smallmouth is landed and it’s half the size the angler thought it would be. I like the fight and spirit of smallmouth bass.
I like pitching and flipping frogs to lunker largemouth bass in the dog days of summer, pointing to a shady spot under a low-hanging branch and watching a lure get crushed the moment it hits the target zone. Sometimes we land fake frogs on real lily pads, only to have aggressive chain pickerel devour them and cut the leader with sharp teeth. I like that, too.
I like putting ashore on a damp, dreary day, building a fire and cooking a shore lunch for my clients the old way — the right way. Sitting on a liar’s bench, telling whoppers and real stories about past trips, both the highs and the lows, is part of it, too.
When fall rolls around, I like the challenge of beating a black bear’s nose. I know it’s impossible, but I like that, too. I like when clients retell the shot and how the bear came into the bait site just like I said it would.
I like using mouth calls to talk to cow moose deep in the valley. I like when they talk back to me. I like calling a big bull moose into the open for a client to make a clean shot. I like shouting, “Hit ’em again,” when the bull goes down, knowing that most of the time a moose can spring back to its feet and make a run for it. I love witnessing the sheer majesty of New England’s largest game animal from 25 yards away — so close I can see the tendrils of vapor from its muzzle on a crisp October morning.
I like hearing a buck approach a tree stand late into the firearms season — the crunching of icy puddles, hooves cracking frozen branches. I like when nervous clients spill doe urine on themselves as we prepare a scent wick. I love the good-natured ribbing they endure back at camp that evening. I like the camaraderie of deer camp.
I like the storied tradition of guiding and walking in the footsteps of giants like Joseph Attean, Cornelia “Fly Rod” Crosby and the Wheatons.
The one thing I like most — what I cherish each and every day — is slipping into my vest with the guide shield sewn on the left chest pocket. I can feel the weight, the duty and the responsibility that patch carries.
So when clients ask that question — which of the two I like guiding better, hunting or fishing — I give them an honest answer:
I like being a Registered Maine Guide.
